Activists transform anti-homeless spikes into a bed in London

LONDON — London has been hit by an urban planning scourge lately in the form of "anti-homeless" spikes that prevent people from sleeping on the streets.

The small but rock hard thorns have been appearing across the city in an attempt to keep people moving on, but one small team of campaigners have staged a protest against them by converting a patch of them into a comfy bedroom.

A collective called Space, Not Spikes have improved a section of spikes outside what used to be Plastic People nightclub in east London, adding a huge mattress, cushions and a small library to the space in an effort to create a welcoming place to bed down.

The books stick to a theme somewhat. Passersby can flick through the likes of Lisa McKenzie's Getting By: Estates, Class and Culture in Austerity Britain and Andrew Harris' Art and Gentrification: Pursuing the Urban Pastoral in Hoxton, London.

“Living in a city, we bumble along from place to place in tightly martialed lines," the group say. "We’re told where we can walk, where we can sit, where we are welcome but only if we spend money. Or have it. It makes us neurotic and engenders a deep sense of ‘otherness’ in anyone who chooses to or simply cannot buy in to what currently passes for society and leisure."

"Anti-homeless spikes are part of that invention, Nothing says 'keep out' to a person more than rows of sharpened buttplugs laid out to stop people from enjoying or using public space."

The group say they're targeting "poor doors and architecture designed to keep the 'right’ people in and the 'wrong’ people out" next.

"Regardless of whether you own, rent or even have a home, the streets are ours,“​ they say.

The unpopular estate agents, Foxtons, recently came under fire for installing the spikes outside one of their branches and Selfridges also saw a petition against their installation earlier this year.

A petition was launched aiming for the removal of the spikes outside Foxtons in Holborn.

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